The Final Count is in for #CosmoIH4TH and Iams Food Donation!

Last week, tons of our Twitter pals helped spread the word about Iams Home 4 The Holidays program and its food drive for shelter animals. By tweeting with the hashtag #CosmoIH4TH, each tweet garnered a 50-meal donation from Iams for a shelter pet.

And now for the grand total........DRUM ROLL please!! ......rat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat....


We collectively sent out 5,952 tweets with #CosmoIH4TH to raise a total of 297,600 meals donated to shelters in need!!! Whoo hoooo!! Way to go!! The way I figure it, that will feed more than 400 animals, two meals a day, for an entire year!!! 


We're thankful for the food, and we really hope that lots of the anipals get adopted. Iams goal for the program is to adopt out 1.5 million pets and give 5 million meals to homeless animals. We explained more about the program here.


Thanks again to all our pals for helping feed the anipals who need it most. The pet community ROCKS!

Pet Blogger Hop and Football Saturday: Go Blue!

In a special football Saturday edition of the Pet Blogger Hop, Cosmo is helping his Michigan Wolverines get ready for the Big Game.

TOUCHDOWN! 

Holiday travel update: pets, air travel and pat downs

A few of you have asked about current travel conditions, with increased airport security and all. And I'm happy to report we didn't have any difficulties at the airport yesterday.

Cosmo here, that's me in the bag!

We checked in as usual at Delta's counter for pet check-in at the Atlanta airport. Cosmo travels in his bag in cabin with me, but you still have to reserve your pet space on the plane and check in at ticketing.


Security also was same as usual. Did they give Cosmo a pat down? The answer is NO! I took him out of his carrier and carried him through security.  The ONLY difference was when we got our bags on the other side of the security x-ray machine, I was asked to put Cosmo back in his carrier right there. I wasn't allowed to carry him to a nearby table, but this was no big deal.

I'm cozy in my carrier under the seat

The flight was uneventful.

Approaching Chicago along Lake Michigan
on the north side of the city.

It was a beautiful day for flying. 

I'm ready to hop in a cab and head to Grandma's!

We arrived in Chicago without any issues at all. There's still the chance for a random body scan or pat down, but for us it was travel as usual

My big green bone goes EVERYWHERE with me!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Pet travel tips this holiday: Travel bag comfort for you and your pet!

Cosmo and I will be leaving on a jet plane this week, heading out to spend Thanksgiving dinner with family and friends, just like thousands of others this holiday!    According to a survey by PetRelocation.com, 63 percent of pet owner says they travel at least 50 miles with their pets during the holidays.  Cosmo's a travel pro at this point, but we put some time into making sure he'd be a well-behaved traveler right from the very start. One of the first things you can do is to make sure you and your pet are comfortable with your travel bag. Here's a few tips to get started! 

1. Play bag games!  When we got our bag, we put it out in the living room and let Cosmo sniff it and get familiar with it. We gave him treats when he touched the bag, and then gave him treats when he got in the bag. Now he knows the command "Go Bag" means that when he gets in and gets comfortable, treats and good things will be coming his way.
2. Carry the bag around the house before your trip! Play the bag game with treats, zip up the bag -- with your pet in it -- and make a few laps around the room. Unzip it with a "Good Dog!" ... and more treats.
3. Keep a small bag of treats handy at the airport. When you go through security, you'll take your pet out of the bag and carry him through with you. The bag will go through the x-ray screening with your other carry-on items. I typically take Cosmo and our bags to a table on the other end of security and play a little game to put him back in the bag. He gets more treats which of course makes him very, very happy! It takes less than a minute to do all this -- you don't want to draw TOO much attention, but folks typically do stop to talk to us. So be sure to schedule a little extra time when traveling with a pet! 
4. Stay calm, yourself! There's something to be said about the saying that dogs can feel your nerves at the other end of the leash. If you're a nervous Nelly, your pet may sense your emotions and have a hard time relaxing too. The more you play bag games and "practice traveling," the more comfortable you BOTH will feel! You might even take a few trial runs by taking your pet and travel bag around the block a few times in the car.
5. And finally, make sure YOU are comfortable with your travel bag. We use the large SturdiBag because it measures the maximum size (12x12x18) allowed by the airline we fly, it's light and flexible enough to place under the seat with ease. Be sure to check pet carrier requirements with the airline you fly. 

For more travel tips, we like Fido Friendly's "Holiday Road Warrior Survivor Guide."

Thanksgiving turkey, here we come! Happy travels!

Join us at Harry Pawter #PawPawty today!

The theme is Harry Pawter -- or Hairy Pawter --  for this month's PawPawty on Twitter and Cosmo is flying high!! So what's new?!


Pawty goes until 2 p.m. ET today... so hurry up and stop by -- use hastag #PawPawty. This month we're raising money for The Last Resort animal rescue in West Milford, NJ. More about PawPawty and how to donate here!


Our playlist was a bit eclectic for this month... a little something for everyone on this list:

And don't forget, from now until Thanksgiving day at Midnight ET, Iams will donate 50 meals to shelter pets for every tweet using the hashtag #CosmoIH4TH! It's all part of Iams Home 4 The Holidays to help shelter pets everywhere! We've already tweeted a gazillion times so let's make it a gazillion more! That's a lot of food for the anipals who need it most!

Special Announcement: Iams will donate 50 bowls of food for every tweet with #CosmoIH4TH from now till Thanksgiving!

I'm lucky I have a wonderful home and lots of good
meals during the holidays. Please help me help
 the anipals who need it most-- your pal, Cosmo

It's Cosmo Havanese here, with a special announcement! Because it's exactly a week before Thanksgiving here in the U.S., I wanted to find a special way to help the anipals who need it most and might not have the chance to have a nice turkey and stuffing dinner.


So Iams is teaming up with me and LISTEN TO THIS!!! For every tweet that goes out with the hashtag #CosmoIH4TH from NOW until midnight on THANKSGIVING, Iams will donate 50 BOWLS OF FOOD to its Iams Home 4 the Holiday program. WOW! We can collect A LOT of food this week and it'll sure feel good to know the less fortunate anipals will be getting nice Thanksgiving meals. 


Just think how many anipals you can feed by adding #CosmoIH4TH to every tweet you send through next Thursday. I hope you'll all help and let's see how many bowls we can get donated!!!! Wheeeeee!

Iams Home 4 the Holidays currently has 3,800 animal shelters enrolled in 21 countries, and its goal is to donate 5 millions meals to shelter pets this season AND help adopt out 1.5 million pets. We explained the program earlier this season here. 


Already this season, 318,370 pets have been adopted and 493,245 meals have been donated. We've got a ways to go, so let's get tweeting!!! 

Wordless Wednesday: Havanese agility pals!

Cosmo's pal Dasher also competes in agility, and during a recent agility weekend the boys took a break and explored the paths and play areas at Wills Park in Alpharetta, Ga.

Dasher's the one with the tongue.

 The path leads to a playground.

The boy's didn't mind humoring their's moms ...

The made a visit to a nice dog park with a separate small dog area.

 And finished the day watching more agility ringside, picking up tips for the next trial!

Pet-spiration: The most inspiring pet parents I know! #momblogoff

Because pets are the new kids, tonight we're participating in a Mommy Blogoff at the WXIA-TV studio in Atlanta. It's all part of social media week in Atlanta -- a week of all sorts of events around the city to showcase Atlanta's involvement in social media. 


Even Mom bloggers need to eat, so we started the evening with a nommy (that's "tasty" in pet speak) cajun-creole spread from Nawlins restaurant in East Atlanta Village.  


But now for the reason we are here. We were just given five topics from which to choose and we are being challenged to write a post about one of them.  I'm choosing "Mom-spiration: The most inspiring parent I know" because our pals in the anipal (that's our animal pals for you mommy bloggers) inspire me every day.


One of Cosmo Havanese's  first pals on twitter was Frugal Dougal, creator of the world famous PawPawty. With the help of 100's of animal parent volunteers participating in PawPawties each month, we've raised nearly $40,000 for animal welfare charities across the world! 

Portrait of Cosmo Havanese by artist @BZTAT

Now Frugal Dougal and our pals at Your Daily Cute and Nip and Bones are kicking off the second annual Santa Paws Drive, the first ever virtual toy drive for pets!! If you like kids, you gotta LOVE pets, so check it out and see how you can pawticipate!


Another one of Cosmo's first twitter pals was @Brewskiebutt. Brew is a kitty, but his mom @BZTAT paints wonderful pet portraits. See the portrait BZTAT did for us at left!  


Now, BZTAT, known in the real world as Vicki Boatright, is planning a 24-hour paint-a-thon this weekend! Along with eight other bloggers who will also be blogging for 24 hours, the group who is led by Dr. V. of Pawcurious, are raising funds for various animal charities. Your can read all about it at Pawcurious!

With so many amazing pet-spirational parents in our community, it's impossible to mention just one, and even more impossible to list them all. So I'll leave you with this video that sums it all up. 


Turn up the volume. Way up!! Pass the tissue's please! 

Thanks to Frugal Dougal and his mum Lynn Haigh of Dougals Den and PawPawty for this amazing video from BlogPaws earlier this year.

Don't Stop Belieeeeeeeeving! 

Get Schooled in a Cause for Paws: GSU Students Take Action!

From May through December, the Green Market at Piedmont Park in Atlanta means lots of locally grown farm-fresh produce, baked goods and other special goodies.  Cosmo and I love to chat with the local farmers and merchants, listen to live music and enjoy some fresh treats along the dogwood-lined streets. 

Today we had the pleasure of meeting an ambitious group of students from Georgia State University, who have turned a school assignment into a worthy cause.

They call their project Panthers for Paws, and as part of a class requirement they are raising money for the charity of their choice.  The group of students who call themselves The Pawsitives selected PAWS Atlanta, a no-kill animal shelter dedicated to providing care and shelter to homeless dogs and cats until they find their forever homes. 

As one the requirements for their Managing People in

Organizations class, this group of Georgia State students

is raising money for the charity of their choice.

The Pawsitives were manning a booth in Piedmont Park today to help raise money for PAWS Atlanta and generate awareness for an event later this week that they hope will help them achieve their fundraising goal.

Since we love to see students learn by applying what they learn in the classroom to real-life situations, we want to spread the word in hopes more people will attend the Panthers for Paws event at Sutra Lounge in Atlanta. 

While I couldn't resist providing a quick lesson in driving donations using social media, you'll need to show up to this event in person. 

EVENT DETAILS

WHEN: Thursday, November 11 --  7 - 10 p.m.

WHERE: Sutra Lounge, 1136 Crescent Avenue NE, Atlanta, GA

DONATIONS: Cover charge of $5.00 will be donated to PAWS Atlanta. There will be beer specials as well as a raffle for wonderful door prizes donated by the community.

Cosmo says, "give these kids a 'High Paw' for their effort!" And if they don't already know it, they'll learn that tapping into the passionate pet community is an excellent way to learn how to rally people and organizations to meet a goal. 

If you can't make it to the event and you'd like to donate to PAWS Atlanta, there are plenty of ways to donate here. I bet if you mention The Pawsitives, the kids may even get some extra credit for their project!

And now, since it's Saturday, let's go to The Hop!

Shopping Finds of the Pet Dining Kind!

Cosmo and I recently visited Kolo Collection, one of our favorite outdoor furnishings stores in Atlanta. In addition to wonderful outdoor seating and dining options in fabulous colors and materials, the folks at Kolo provide tremendous personalized service and helped us with our outdoor space.


So what does this have to do with pets? Besides the dog-friendly atmosphere and comfy seating for Cosmo, during our most recent visit we discovered some unique pet food bowls and pet mats in styles we haven't seen before.

This pet mat from Chilewich comes in a variety of colors to match any decor. And with a bone-inspired shape and puppy cut-out in the middle we thought they'd make an adorable addition to any dog's dining space! 


The sky blue pet food bowls (and black ones to the left) come from Loll in three heights and eight colors! We love these not only for their clean, modern look, but also because they are made of recycled milk jugs and are durable enough for indoor or outdoor use!

All that shopping can tire out a small pup! Cosmo finds a comfy place amidst some oversized pillows in bright, modern colors -- the perfect complement to Cosmo's black and white fluffiness! Kolo carries outdoor/indoor furniture lines and accessories from Brown Jordan, DEDON, Royal Botanica, Amalfi Living, Chilewich, Loll, Cane-line, Emu and more. Check it all out here! Shop ON!